


Burn Down My Home

by jaegerpilot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaegerpilot/pseuds/jaegerpilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean can't let go of Sam, and Cas doesn't want to let go of Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn Down My Home

Dean sits on the back porch of a old house overlooking a sparkling lake. There’s a slight breeze and the air is quiet other than the sound of a loon calling out from the somewhere in the distance. It seems picturesque, and it is; but the loon’s cry is more like a howl, low and mournful, and Dean can relate.

He’s alone, despite the person seated next to him. The years haven’t changed Cas like they have Dean. Other than the weight of sadness in his eyes, he looks the same as he did all those years ago, striding into that barn, declaring who he was. "I’m an angel of the lord." Some things time can’t even make you forget, and Dean can still hear it in his mind, clear as the day Cas first said it. "I’m an angel of the lord."

That statement’s not so true these days. And he hasn’t heard Cas say anything like that in a long time. Dean doesn’t know what Cas is anymore. He says he’s human, but who could believe that? Humans age, Dean’s a clear example of that, but Cas… there’s not even a single gray strand in that jet black hair of his. No, Cas ain’t human. But he’s not an angel either. Truth be told, Dean isn’t sure if even Cas himself knows what he is anymore.

"Dean, it doesn’t matter," he tells him in that gravelly, monotonous voice. "As long as you’re here, I’m here."

Dean doesn’t like it when he says things like that. He doesn’t like to think of the selfless devotion Cas has for him. It only makes him feel guilty for never being able to give the same thing back.

They say you can only ever truly love one person in life with all of your soul — for Cas it’s Dean, but for Dean it’s Sam. It’s always been Sam. But now Sam’s gone.

It happened earlier in the year, just before his 58th birthday. Old for a hunter, every kind of too young for Sam. They’d quit the life, something they never thought they’d actually be able to do, but the damn bastard — a vampire that must’ve broken off from one of the last nests around, a clan back east — had wandered into the town they were living just outside of. And maybe they could ignore what was going on in the rest of the country; telling themselves they’re too old, too worn down, someone else’ll take care of it, they’d done their part, made their sacrifices, saved the world enough times; but they couldn’t ignore something happening so close you could practically smell the spilled blood in the air, taste the copper on your tongue.

If Dean had known the outcome of their one last hunt he would’ve let it be. Hell, the whole town could’ve gone to the grave, himself with ‘em, if it had meant even just a few more years for Sammy. He knew his little brother would’ve hated to hear that, they were both too self-sacrificing when it came to each other, but Dean didn’t care. He was older and he was supposed to go first.

And he knew it was obvious, when just after the funeral he went out with a single machete to hack the son of a bitch’s head off, that he was hoping that would be it, his last hunt, his last action on his earth. And he went out with that certainty in his heart, though he was wishing it could be different. He wished a lot of things could be different.

Cas was there with him; invisible, one of the few things he could still do; because yes, it was obvious, and he did know what Dean was thinking, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. 

He didn’t have to worry though. Dean was too angry, too fueled with rage at the sight of the abomination that killed his brother, that it didn’t even get a single move in before Dean took its head off.

And so there he was: brotherless, brokenhearted, with a dead vampire at his feet and a godless angel hidden at his back. The blood that’d sprayed across his face was cold by the time he went back home to face the future.

And now he sits on the back porch, waiting for his time to come, waiting to get back to Sam. Sometimes the thought crosses his mind that he won’t end up in the same place as his brother. Surely Sammy deserves better than whatever Dean’s got coming to him; but he pushes those thoughts aside and relies on blind faith that the universe couldn’t really be that cruel. Faith -- something Sammy finally taught him to believe in.

"Dean... do you want me to get you som pie?" Cas asks, as he has been for the past few months, like it’s the only thing he can think of that might cheer him up. And when Dean gives him a sad smile and a slow shake of his head, Cas is reminded once again that the only thing Dean wants is Sam.

He’s known this all along, right from the beginning, right from when he raised him from perdition — pain and agony and a single name, “Sam Sam Sam Sam." He’s known it all along but it still hurts. A sharp ache in his chest. It was the first thing he ever felt and he knows it’ll be the last. There’s no alternate route, no possible outcome where feelings change and the pressure in his chest switches from heartache to… Cas doesn’t know what it would switch to. The opposite of what he was feeling now, he guesses, what he’d been feeling for three decades. The longest and the shortest three decades of his existance. A blip on his radar but one that would never truly go away.

He looks at Dean out of the corner of his eye. Old and tired and sad. Cas shouldn’t be so selfish; he knows he can give Dean what he wants, but it’s not what Cas wants. He’s been battling with this for the last couple months. What he should do and what he wants to do.

"Dean," he says, his voice level and steady, “I have something to show you."

"Not now Cas."

"Yes," he says, not unkindly, "now."

I should’ve done this months ago, I’m sorry Dean, I’m sorry I was so selfish. He says these things, but not with words. Dean’s turned to look at him and he hopes he can read it in his eyes.

He raises his hand to Dean’s temple and lets it rest there. His fingers aren’t shaking and that surprises him — though it shouldn’t, his body rarely betrays how he’s feeling. Dean’s looking at him, not suspicious — he’s grown accustomed to Cas doing these odd sorts of things over the years — and not even curious — because nothing has even remotely interested him since Sammy died — but with a look of bland indifference that Cas finds even more unsettling than what he’s about to do. And pushes him to finally do it.

Cas takes one last breath; one last long look at his favourite person in the entire universe, memorizing each line, each freckle; before giving Dean what he’s always wanted to give him: everything. So he gives him Sam.

Cas had seen a lot of people die. Usually the light in their eyes dim down and then they’re gone. With Dean it was different. But isn’t everything with Dean different.

He lit up, he came back. And Cas saw the Dean Winchester he remembered, if only for a moment.

And then he was gone. No fading, no light dimming in his eyes as the life drained from him. He was there in his entirety; the happiest he’d ever looked, though his face didn’t move a muscle; and then it was just Cas sitting on a porch with the old vessel of his one love, his best friend, and the knowledge that in that last second that look of pure joy came from Dean seeing Sam.

Cas should feel happy for him, but he can’t.

Everyone gets their own slice of heaven, except for a few special cases. Soulmates share heaven. Cas could go there, he knows he can, but heaven shared by two people is different from the other kind. And it felt invasive and wrong to intrude on something shared so intimately between two people. 

And yet…

・ ・ ・

Dean doesn’t look down at himself, so he doesn’t notice the years drop away, doesn’t notice that he looks the same as he did when he was younger, when he and Sam first started hunting together. All he sees is Sam. Sam Sam Sam. Hunched over, his nose in some big ole dusty book, sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala, door open and music playing inside. Something by Kansas, Carry On something or rather. Dean doesn’t care.

"Sammy," he calls, and his voice is young and strong again, yet husky with emotion.

Sam looks up and a large grin spreads across his face. He looks just about the same as he did that day at Harvard so many years ago. What had he been studying to be? Seems like an odd dream.

"Dean," Sammy says, and even if you hadn’t been looking at him you would’ve heard the smile in his voice.

And after the hug that seemed like it might’ve lasted as many years as they’d spent together; maybe it did, who’s to say; and after the words and the stories and the sound of Sam cracking open a beer for his big brother, they sat on the hood of the car. No monsters in heaven, no blood or tears, nothing to protect each other from. Nothing to do, some people might say.

But Sam and Dean could park her in the middle of nowhere and sit on the hood, looking up at the stars for hours, not saying a word. And what’s an hour in heaven? A day? A month? Infinity? They don’t really need any monsters or impending apocalypses to make their lives worth living, they just need each other. And sitting in heaven. looking up at the stars, beers in hand, that’s what they have.

And they don’t even notice the figure standing off to the side of the road, bathed in the shadowy gloom from the trees, his tan trenchcoat rumpled and his hair mussed. They never would.


End file.
